


Said a Spider to an Eye

by Dribbledscribbles



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Gen, In which I'm tired of waiting for Annabelle Cane to happen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dribbledscribbles/pseuds/Dribbledscribbles
Summary: Annabelle Cane comes to visit Jonah Magnus on his little throne.She comes with thanks for the lovely time collaborating with him on the Archive.She comes with congratulations on how far up he's come in the Changed world.She comes with some very unfortunate news.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 29
Kudos: 275





	Said a Spider to an Eye

“Evening, Your Highness.”

Out of all the sounds in the Changed world, the howls, the moans, the laughter, the screams, the horrible, searing music, it is these three pleasant words that have managed to scare Jonah Magnus’ heart halfway out of his ribs. He has never heard the voice which spoke them before now. But he doesn’t need to use his Eye to tell him who it must be.

He slips suddenly back into his very first life in his very first body, recalling a poem passed around to children of that quietly morbid era. The first verse comes to him in the elderly sing-song of a governess he doesn’t remember the name of.

_"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly;  
" 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.  
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,  
And I have many pretty things to shew when you are there."  
"Oh no, no!" said the little fly, "to ask me is in vain,  
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."_

Perhaps a product of his own mind. Perhaps a teasing nudge from the Mother, or her visiting Daughter. He brushes it off his thoughts like the cobweb it is. Then turns a smile up to the highest corner of the room. The room is ostensibly still his ‘office’ in the Magnus Institute—sentimental, true, perhaps not as fitting as the cliché of the Shard or Buckingham Palace—but a little rifling in the right Leitner had augmented the building’s dimensions into a hulking mammoth of a castle. Its filigree and ornamentation stared from every angle. And now, now with the Watcher practically above his roof, Jonah can See through all of them without even trying, to say nothing of his army of assorted serfs, slaves, and vassals.

Which begs a specific question.

“Hello to you too, Ms. Cane.” His smile sharpens and his Eyes hone with it. “If I asked you how you slipped by my Sight, would you tell me?”

“I wouldn’t,” says Annabelle Cane, “Nor would I recommend prying too deeply. Wouldn’t want you to get stuck in here.” She taps one too-knuckled finger by the shattered place in her skull where silk and crawling kin roost. “I’ve been just so busy since Mother came over. No time to sweep out the cobwebs, you know. But, if you do need some hint…” As she speaks, she descends. A cord of silk more powerful than steel lowers her to the floor, dainty as an orb weaver. “…Even clairvoyance as strong as yours has cracks in its Vision. In any case, I’ll not bother you too long.” Her face crinkles in a pantomime of a fretting businesswoman clicking her tongue at the endless to-dos in her planner. You could almost overlook the symmetric spray of oil bubble eyes making the expression. “I’ve another meeting scheduled after this. You Know how it is.”

“That I do. You would think all this,” he gestures airily at what he is only half-jokingly referring to as a throne room, “would mean you don’t have to deal with anything resembling office politics again. But no.” The weary sigh that leaves him is also only half-joking. 

Don’t get him wrong, he had certainly gotten what he wanted. With the Eye’s presence, his own power had erupted ten, even twentyfold from what it was, and he was now a certified immortal. Tell the truth, he had been just a pinch jealous of Jon’s hastily-gifted endurance pre-Change. Yes, yes, all the better to make sure he was physically incapable of blinding himself should he try to make a run from his title—but still. 

Jon’s on the Watcher’s team a couple years, half-starved on his own morality, and he gets the whole miraculous healing package. Jonah had been serving for nigh three centuries and still had to resort to body-hopping just to escape aging to death. He had never had siblings in his first life and so had no way to compare it, but he assumed the feeling wasn’t unlike seeing parents shower baby brother with all the treats he’d never had at that age.

But the past was the past and this was now. Now, when he is powerful. Now, when he is everlasting. Now, when he is King of a Ruined World.

At least, a sizable chunk of it. A fourteenth. Whose borders are in constant, aggravating, turf warring flux. Because even after receiving proof-positive that the Fears were conjoined like fingers on the same horrific hand, guess what? All those avatars who had committed their wicked lives to sowing more Fear while also clawing at each other the second it seemed someone else’s ritual was about to come to fruition? Well, they didn’t do _that_ anymore.

Now all they did was play an endless game of tug-of-war over who got what victims and what territory should innately belong to what Fear and no, hey, that isn’t _nycto_ phobia, that’s _claustro_ phobia! Dibs, Dark! The Buried calls dibs! 

Christ, but it was like dealing with greedy, eldritch children. Jonah was fortunate enough to be in a position where the other Fears and their followers knew they owed him a debt. Better, they had finally accepted that maybe, possibly, the Eye had never been a direct threat to any of them. It had, in fact, been the whole reason they were able to instill any terror at all.

How can you fear a thing if you don’t Know to be afraid?

And so the Beholding’s chief avatar—not counting poor, moping Jon—got to be left alone, ditto his collection of toys and victims honored enough to worship him. All was well.

You know, unless one counted the nearly endless parade of monsters and malefactors that came to his door with their petty grievances. Jonah had lost count of how many times Rosie—dear, shuddering, shock-bleached thing that she was now—had cautiously announced that another squabble had blown up between agents of the Spiral and the Stranger regarding who deserved X paranoid schizophrenic more than the other. Or some damn thing. 

Much as Jonah admires the accidental King Solomon role he’s found himself in, he’s also painfully aware of the irony. He brought about the apocalypse in an effort to become an omnipotent ruler, free from all threats, all trials, all tribulations, endless, immortal hedonism forever! Cackling ensues!

And even with all that, he is still in managerial hell.

“The more things Change, the more they stay the same.”

Annabelle makes a noise between a chuckle and a grimace. She’s taken the chair across from him, spindly legs crossed. The steeple she makes with her hands begins to weave the silk that dribbles from her fingertips. Cat’s cradle. 

“So, if I cannot read your mind—,”

“You can’t.”

And Jonah can’t. Not very well, anyway. It's somehow stickier in her head than he expects. Full of hundreds of other whispering minds that make him feel lost and crowded. He sighs.

“—then I have to ask, why have you graced me with your presence?” 

She smiles at him over the pattern in her fingers. The next verse croons in his head.

_"I'm sure you must be weary, with soaring up so high,  
Will you rest upon my little bed?" said the spider to the fly.  
"There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin;  
And if you like to rest awhile, I'll snugly tuck you in."  
"Oh no, no!" said the little fly, "for I've often heard it said,  
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"_

He flicks it away. The pattern she holds up is a staring eye which she winks through.

“First off, to congratulate and give an official thank-you. Regardless of what you may think of the Mother and her kin, we are not the type to hoard undue credit. A plan is only as strong as those who carry it out. Without you, we would never have made Jon into what he is. I believe you upgraded his title before you slotted him into the Door’s keyhole and turned. Archivist promoted to Archive. Or am I remembering wrong?”

“It’s true." Jonah shrugs. "He was always more of a collection than a collector. Best employee I ever had. If he were still on my payroll, I’d have given him the keys to my office by now and retired.”

A light laugh huffs out of her.

“This doesn’t qualify as retirement? Even with occasional headaches from dealing with the rabble’s property disputes, surely this must be a step up from what you had before.”

“It is. I just wish I’d had a little more time to, you know, bask in the moment. Instead I blinked and I was playing referee to the Flesh and the Corruption, both of whom had avatars trying to harvest a household with a mother, father, two aunts, and quintuplets to fight over. Neither of whom would give up their claim on the leftover fifth child, which led to the girl getting dragged off by a Hunter mid-argument, and… Lord, but I wish alcohol still had an effect. I miss my Bordeaux.”

Annabelle shrugs at this. She’s weaving something new.

“Just as well you don’t touch the bottle anymore, Jonah. Most of it’s turned to blood by now. Besides,” she holds up a finished smiley face, a warped visage the thing called ‘Helen’ might appreciate, “you can’t convince me you and your Eye in the sky aren’t having fun. What better way to pass the eons than with watching the kids snap at each other?”

Another verse.

_“Said the cunning spider to the fly, "Dear friend, what shall I do,  
To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?  
I have, within my pantry, good store of all that's nice;  
I'm sure you're very welcome—will you please to take a slice?"  
"Oh no, no!" said the little fly, "kind sir, that cannot be,"  
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see."_

It’s harder to pry away this time.

“It does have its appeal.” Jonah lets his Eyes shine through. He sees their pallid light reflect off her eight separate stares. “But I’m sure you aren’t concerned with how much I am or am not enjoying the show. The Spider has more important things to concern herself with, no?”

She hums and starts a new design.

“She does. Always busy, always weaving. Though I’ll admit our territories are a fair bit more,” a wrinkle marks her nose and a venomous fang shows when her lip curls in an unimpressed moue, “ _orderly_ than anything you’ve assumed executive authority over. She hasn’t quite the same laissez-faire attitude toward governing you do.”

“Ah. Well do pardon me if my managing style doesn’t compare. Perhaps my failings lie in not making myself clear enough. Spent some centuries doing anything but giving the truth. Let me try again.” Jonah’s Eyes—the ones in his head and the ones in his walls and the ones in his subjects—grow luminescent with Sight. “ _What are you doing in my parlour, little Spider?_ ”

Finally, Annabelle Cane shows a twinge of discomfort, all her eyes squinting, the mandibles tucked inside her mouth hissing and chittering. Better, the cobwebs of her mind part a few of its silk curtains before his Gaze. And Jonah Sees—Sees—Sees—

“Jon is gone.” Jonah has said it aloud before the reality registers in his mind. When it does: “ _Jon_ is _gone_!?”

“Yes, lovely little rhyme, isn’t it?” Annabelle grumbles, kneading the side of her head that isn’t a chasm. “Easy to remember.” She hisses with migraine. “God, Jonah, I was going to tell you anyway, deliver the news gently—,”

“Since _when_ has he been fucking _gone_!?” Jonah tries to rip the answer out of her before she can speak. But the silk curtain has fallen again, and this time something lurking in her head _bites._ It strikes Jonah behind the Eyes like a sinus headache times ten, jolting him back with a shout.

“Patience is a virtue,” Annabelle grates out. On the last syllable, a crystalline drop of venom falls shining from her lip. “If we had to estimate in this new, timeless world, we'd say a week, Jonah. He has been missing from the little Scottish cabin for something like a week.” She straightens a lapel, tucks a stray length of silk back in her skull. “Clairvoyance has blind spots, the Web has holes built into its design, and Jon Knows quite a hell of a lot post-Change. Including where our respective gaps overlap. And so now he is out and about, sans supervision. Which I was going to _tell_ you in the first place, Jonah. …Jonah? Still with me?”

Jonah is very much not. He has every Eye he can spare searching the space between Scotland and England and all the new spaces that have grown like mold around them and—and—

God, but he wishes he could still get drunk. 

“Jonah, I understand being curious, but why all this fuss? He’s a big boy and the Archive on top of that. Surely he can handle running off to elope with his little syrup-sweet beau?”

Jonah takes a last, straining scan of all the parts of the Changed world he can See. And still does not See Jonathan Goddamn Sims.

“What do you want?”

“Pardon?” 

“What. Do you want. In exchange.”

“For what, Jonah? I’m afraid I don’t follow.” 

Jonah looks up from where he has buried his Eyes in his palms. The glower he wears can, and has, seared holes in the brains of entities who could scour city-states into ash and turn oceans into living leviathans. Annabelle merely bats all eight sets of lashes. 

_"Sweet creature!" said the spider, "you're witty and you're wise.  
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!  
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,  
If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."  
"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say,  
And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day."_

He doesn’t bother to ignore the thought. Just lets it sizzle on the hating inferno of his mind.

His teeth don’t unlock as he elaborates, “What is it you want from me in exchange for helping me locate, detain, and secure Jonathan Sims?”

Annabelle tilts her head in mock-surprise. One spinneret finger taps her chin.

“Locate and detain sounds simple enough—he was always the most eligible kidnapping victim in London—but I’m not sure what you mean by secure. Do you want him restrained in bubble wrap? Delivered in a helmet and kneepads?”

“Will you just. Stop. Stop pretending you aren’t aware of exactly how serious this is. The Web may not be omniscient, but only by an inch.”

“If not less.”

“Exactly. Which means you know that the Eye is not the only Fear which has mandated that the Archive is to remain unharmed, intact, and, if at all possible, immobile during this,” he waves irately at nothing, at everything, “transition period. You called him a key to the Door, and he was. But he is also the Doorstopper, as it were. He goes, the Door swings shut, and takes all of Them—all of us—into the other side. Or do you not recall that bit of orientation?”

“No need to be snippy, Jonah. Of course I do. It also begs the question of why you’re so worried in the first place. Jon is the Archive and he is off-limits. What danger could he possibly be in? If anything, I’m sure he’s enjoying the smorgasbord of dread funneling into him. If reluctantly, sad vegan monster that he is.”

“Yes, Annabelle, Jon is the Archive. But Jon is also Jon, and, even without either of our planning for it, the man draws danger like a magnet draws paperclips. If anything could go wrong, it will go wrong for him. Could be there’s some renegade group out there, trying to devise a way to destroy him. Perhaps Jon himself is looking for a permanent exit. Maybe both. I don’t Know. And the fact that I _don’t Know_ —,”

“Makes you antsy?”

Jonah crunches his hands together in what should be a gentle fold of fingers. They strangle each other instead. He imagines the skinny ex-young woman's neck snapping between them.

“Justifiably concerned. As you should be. So, again—,”

“What is the Web’s price for delivering you the Archive, safe and sound? Just so you Know," she winks a few eyes, "we won’t charge extra for gift-wrapping, if you wanted him in a little silk sleeve and a bow. Call it a discount.”

“ _Annabelle._ ”

“Jonah.”

“If all you’re going to do is drag this out, you can take yourself out the way you came. I’d get straighter answers out of the Distortion than you.”

“Oh, don’t let her hear you say that. Unless you want one of your castle chambers to lead you down a lovely new hall. But, concerning the topic of price—well.” Annabelle musters a hurt sulk. Even the spiders on her temple seem stung. “I’d thought after how pleasantly we collaborated last time, we were above such petty things. A transaction suggests an unfamiliarity that has no place between the Eye and the Web. Now, if you merely wanted me to pass on a request to the Mother, that would just be a little favor between friends. And that only costs one tiny thing from you.”

“Which is?”

Her eyes gleam brighter than glass. His reflection is trapped eight times inside them.

“A little politeness, Jonah. Just say please.”

_“The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,  
For well he knew, the silly fly would soon come back again:  
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner, sly,  
And set his table ready, to dine upon the fly.  
Then he went out to his door again, and merrily did sing,  
"Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing;  
Your robes are green and purple---there's a crest upon your head;  
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead."_

“Fine. _Please._ Please, if you and the Mother of Puppets would be so kind, aid me in finding and securing the Archive.”

“All I needed to hear. Just a moment.”

“Wh—,”

“Shh. Hold on.”

Her spiders are a sudden, scurrying blur of activity. Behind and beneath her an eight-legged shadow pools and stretches. Jonah feels as if a thousand tiny legs were crawling on him. Just as suddenly, Annabelle perks up with a satisfied hum. 

“Found him.”

“What.”

“Jon. We have him.”

“You have—wait, how—?”

Annabelle cants her head to one side, nodding to one of several looming windows.

“See for yourself.”

So Jonah Looks. And Jonah Sees. He Sees Jonathan Sims holding Martin Blackwood’s hand in a death grip. He’s less than a block away from the Institute, ringed and double-ringed by Spiders of various shapes and horrific sizes, along with an array of handy, hostage puppets. Jonah doesn’t have to pry to Know the latter will kill themselves the moment Jon lets off the tiniest crackle of Archival static. The perks of having a humanitarian antichrist.

“…How long have you had him?”

“Again, we can’t really measure in terms of hours or minutes or days anymore. Let’s just call it a while.”

“You let me see that snippet of information. Let me see Jon was out of the cabin.”

“Well, you helped yourself to that. But yes, that was the only bit I was planning to share.”

“For what? Just to see me sweat?”

“I’d like to say it was. It was quite a Sight, and I’ll cherish a number of faces you’ve made. But mostly,” she sighs, “it was me putting off the actual unpleasantness. I do so hate being a bearer of bad news.”

“I’m sure.”

“It’s true. One of the messier duties I’m tasked with. But if the Mother says it needs doing, I do it. That said. Jonah,” another, deeper, steeling sigh, “I’m afraid you’re being let go.”

_Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,  
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;  
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,  
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue:—  
Thinking only of her crested head, poor foolish thing!—At last  
Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast._

“I believe you’ve lost me.”

“No, I haven’t. I mean just what I said. You’re being let go. Removed from office. Shown the door. Given the pink slip. Pick whatever analogy you like, but you are no longer allowed to be,” she gestures airily at the cathedral walls of the throne-office, “the ‘beating heart’ of all this. Apologies. I wish I could call it a proper retirement, but I didn’t even think to bring you an engraved watch for your departure. Careless of me.”

“If this is a joke, get to the punchline.”

“No joke, Jonah. The Mother is quite serious about the situation here.”

“That situation being?”

Annabelle sucks in an uncomfortable breath through her mandibles. The too-long fingers twiddle and tangle themselves in webbing.

“Well, the fact that, at this rate you’re going to be reliving the climax of the French Revolution quite soon. And you won’t even have the option of dying once your head falls in the basket. Save the questions and the snooping, Jonah. Let me explain. The short of it is: 

“One, no one really likes you. I cannot think of a single avatar before or after Peter Lukas who even halfway enjoyed being in a room with you. Merely tolerating your presence is a strain. This is to say nothing of the way you ‘manage’ the little scuffles you claim to break up. More than half the time, you have exacerbated disputes for the sake of a bigger body count and what you assume is a better show for the Eye. And for yourself, naturally. Funny as you may think it was, pitting the Vast against the Lonely and ‘solving’ their quarrel by simultaneously engorging and erasing half of Ireland was not the best way to handle it.

“Two, the Mother is, to put it lightly, quite tired of chaperoning you. Ditto pretending she can trust you not to start making clumsy attempts of your own to expand your so-called kingdom. You moan and sigh over your eldritch manager woes aloud, but inside? Well, I hardly need to be a mind reader to know you’re more than in your element. You’re positively giddy that you still get to act like you’re some high and mighty chess master, playing even the Fears’ minions against each other, when really, you are now as you ever were. A voyeur. A nosy upper-class sadist who couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than an entire world as his sandbox to play and defecate in for all eternity. You will, given time and boredom enough, start grabbing at things that aren’t yours, butting into intricacies you could not hope to cram into that thimble of a skull you’re so proud to call ‘omniscient.’

“Three, and condolences if this stings whatever shriveled peach pit you call a heart, but Jonah? The Eye doesn’t much care for you either. The math just doesn’t check out. Think about it—I’m sure you’ve tried not to, in the past. Tried not to consider just how little it’s given you for all you’ve given it in three-hundred years and Change. You can read minds. You can spy through others’ eyes. You can, with great, laboring care, transplant yourself into a new body via an ocular swap. Three-hundred years, Jonah Magnus, and this is the sum of your gifts. Even now, with the Beholding here on Earth, your strength is only increased because your patron is so near. There was no effort on its part to increase your status. It was merely a byproduct. 

“You brought about the creation of the Archive. You made him open the Door. You brought your great Staring god here. So why? Why does it give you so little? I think I can guess.

“You bore it, Jonah Magnus. Plain as that. If you bored it any harder, the world would flood with its tired tears. You stopped interesting the Eye ages ago, once you proved that you simply would not change no matter how many lives you lived. You spied on others’ pain and drama, you built the Institute to act as a feeding trough, you searched and plotted your way towards somehow performing a successful ritual and donning the Watcher’s Crown for your own oh-so-basic human sense of self-indulgence. Would any other privileged prick with a yen for enjoying others’ suffering have done differently in your spot? I doubt it. Oh, and speaking of the Watcher’s Crown…"

Annabelle leans in, her face rapt.

“Where is it, Jonah? I won’t say I expected an actual thing of gold and jewels, but there should have been some sign that you’d succeeded. Some grand change, perhaps a token that manifested before you like Jon’s little tape recorders—oh! Oh, wait! That’s it right there, isn’t it? You didn’t open the Door at all, Jonah.

“Jon did. Jon, the Archive. Jon, the Archivist. Jon, who was receiving Knowledge and Sights and Powers in a pinch of years that were worlds beyond what you ever received in centuries. I think I can guess the reason for that too. I think it is because, inasmuch as the Fears are capable of anything even remotely resembling fondness, the Eye loves him. 

“It has never Seen a better show in its ageless life than the calamity of Jonathan Sims’ existence. It has never had an avatar so immediately, wantonly addicted and receptive to Discovery, with or without your nudging him into the line of fire. For God’s sake, he _ate a star made of stuff Darker than dark matter,_ Jonah. With his _Eyes_! He thought he might die looking at the Dark Sun, and only had the vaguest feeling that maybe he needed to Look at it. So he told Basira. 

“He lied, Jonah. He lied, because, like a gangly Odysseus before the Sirens, he just had to Experience it. To See it for himself. I do suspect that if the Eye had ever been wavering before that point, it locked onto him forever right then. How could it not? And how could it deny this Archivist the Power he needed to not only survive the Dark Sun, but to Archive it? No more than it could deny him the strength he needed to rip Peter Lukas into misty atoms for failing to answer his questions. Just with a few words, Jonah. With a thought, he disintegrated an avatar _on his own turf_.

“Where was that power for you? Where is it now? I don’t think either of us has to guess. No more than we need to guess whose head that Crown is opening its Eyes on as we speak. Turns out, Jon had to come out of his little cabin for it to finally latch onto him. Out in the open, with nothing to obstruct the constant buffet of horror the Fears keep merrily cramming down his throat, Jon can’t keep the thing off him anymore. Looks rather dashing on him, I think. Regal.

“But I’m rambling. Back to my point. You are going, Jonah. Making room for someone who actually has something in common with every Fear; a mark for all fourteen, and an Understanding he cannot deny, much as he wishes to. Someone who radiates as much as absorbs the horror of every Aspect of this nightmare we live in. Someone who will always Know the right answer, even when there is no ethical one, because now he cannot stop Knowing All, Seeing All, and Experiencing All. Someone the Eye will actually bother to keep Watch over, rather than let the competition slip in through a crack in the wall. And, well."

A fond little smile curls. The look of a sister quietly proud of a toddler sibling's first steps.

“Someone who may or may not be a favorite puppet of the Mother’s. We did call dibs on him first, you’ll recall. Handed him to you on loan, but now that the Watcher’s so attached...” She shrugs and a rain of spiders cascade down her arms. “Joint custody isn’t out of the question. Not yet a puppet ruler, our Jon, but there will be plenty of time for that between now and eternity. Wretched as he was at playing boss in later years, he really wasn’t half bad at it before you started getting the trauma ball rolling. 

“In the meantime, we’ll be happy to guide him. Help the Buried’s trains run on time and all that. Logistics aside, he’ll certainly make for a better judge and jury than you did. You may See the truth and twist it, Jonah, but Jon drags the truth screaming and kicking into the open. No doubt he’ll also be a much-needed advocate for not killing off all the chattel for shits and giggles. We’ve trouble enough between the Slaughter and Terminus. The Archive would make a Compelling argument towards cooling everyone’s murderous fervor, get them to start actually planning for a future rather than mowing down the food supply."

Annabelle sighs, rolling her fidgeting silk into a ball. She flicks it like a clump of earwax at Jonah. It sticks to his tie. He does not remove it.

“Well. I think that about sums it up. All over but the eviction. Any questions? Hmm? Oh, yes, the paralysis. I did mention the Eye wasn’t keeping too close a Watch on you. Between Jon’s surprise visit and my prattling I’m sure you didn’t notice the little nip you felt on the back of your neck. Nor the silk growing from the ceiling. Don’t even feel it on you, do you? No one ever does until Mother wants them to. Believe me, there will be plenty to feel soon.

“Now don’t give me that look. We’re not going to kill you, obviously. You can’t die now. Especially not when Jon’s just around the corner, no doubt so eager to See you again. Oh! You Know what? I think there’s a way to compromise. You won’t have to leave your little castle after all. Just follow me, Jonah. I’ll show you what I mean.”

Jonah stands. Jonah follows her. 

Not long after, Annabelle Cane is perched atop the throne that never belonged to Jonah Magnus. She is looking down at Jon who is Looking everywhere at once. His Crown is unblinking. 

It Witnesses Annabelle, laying out the lovely new living arrangement and career he has waiting for him in this brave, Changed world. 

It Witnesses Martin Blackwood, still locked hand-in-hand, constant as a limb beside him.

It Witnesses the Eye, grown huge and dark with excitement at Jon’s arrival, finally finished with his hiding, set to spend infinity under its eager Watch.

It Witnesses the greyed-but-recognized-and-recognizing faces of people he once worked with, unsure of what is happening to them now, but praying, praying, praying it will be better than what the thing that once called itself Elias Bouchard has treated them to.

And it Witnesses the gift that had been waiting to greet Jon in the foyer, hanging like a gruesome chandelier. 

Jonah Magnus is strong enough to survive almost anything now. He is as durable and regenerative as Jon ever was. When the spiders sink their fangs into his Eyes, melt them, and nurse them from the sockets, he is not blind for long. New Eyes swell to take their place. And the next hungry pair scurries up to take their meal. Between screams, he sings:

_“He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,  
Within his little parlour—but she ne'er came out again!  
—And now, dear little children, who may this story read,  
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed:  
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart, and ear, and eye,  
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly._


End file.
